


Chasing Daybreak

by snarkwhal



Category: Nikolai Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post Ruin and Rising, but i'll take what i can get, honestly it will be a miracle if alina shows up in rule of wolves, king of scars spoilers, post king of scars
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:33:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26603785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarkwhal/pseuds/snarkwhal
Summary: With the rumours of miracles and new cults, Alina has no idea what's on the horizon for Ravka. And she doesn't know when she'll see the dawn again.(Or just how I think she'd react to the events in King of Scars)
Relationships: Mal Oretsev/Alina Starkov, The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34
Collections: Grisha Trilogy





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh, I wanted to write this immediately after I read KoS, but I put it off for some reason. Then while I was on a Fire Emblem kick again, I realized that there were some things in Three Houses that would fit with Alina, and more specifically, worked as prompts for Alarkling. So this kind of came out of that, and there are some references I chucked in there. Hell, the title is the name of a song from the soundtrack. I am insufferable trash for both fandoms.

As a pallid and sombre child, the only experience the girl had had with spectres was the nicknames she’d received. 

Running through the estate, down its dim corridors and in and out of dusty rooms, she could hear the teachers whisper as she passed. She was too frail, too quiet. How she kept up with the boy was a miracle. How she did not just disappear when their backs were turned was a mystery. But the girl was not fond of the pitying looks or the concerned critiques of her demeanor; she simply cared for the forgotten rooms and hidden meadows where she and the boy could escape.

In their pockets of the world, the whispers of ghosts could not reach them.

Of course, the girl had wondered about her past home, her old friends, her family. Were they ghosts as well? Was she supposed to join them? Why was she stuck in between? Surely if she was meant to be elsewhere, she would’ve felt the pull sooner.

Yet, while the whispers could not reach her then, the woman could hardly avoid them now.

**

Though the lady of the house was not particularly religious, she had her own rituals. Some nights she would sit by the fire, nursing a glass of tea, head turned to the side as if she were listening to a friend gossip. On others she would light several candles, a tabby cat curled on her lap as the two of them watched the tiny flames dance. From time to time, she would push another chair closer to the fire before sitting opposite and pouring a glass of kvas to place before it. On rare occasions, a wayward child would ask if there were spirits in the house that she spoke to and did these things for, and each time she simply urged them back to bed.

The children were curious about her grief, as were the staff, but more were curious about her husband. Though they laughed together as they danced through the halls, and though she smiled whenever he brought her blossoms in a blue cup, she always sat without him on these nights. He would whisper in her ear, and she would nod, urging him back to bed, only to join him hours later. If she sat by the windows, twirling her fingers in the sunlight, he would take her hand, only for her to slip it back out of his and cry at the emptiness. On Sankta Alina’s day, or whenever he heard her name, he held his wife a little closer and a little tighter as she sat silent.

None of them could piece together what exactly haunted her. Yet, she left fragments on the walls where a small boat drifted across the True Sea and serpents and snowy white deer climbed up the stairs. They were there in every painstakingly detailed feather of the firebird and every branch and leaf in the tunnel of trees. They were even there in the tiny sun burst hidden between the petals of an iris or in the soft shape of a cloud, creating a game along with the figures scattered throughout the scenes.

The figures often wandered the halls alongside her, marvelling at her art as they passed. The two companions who she sat drinking tea with looked longingly at their painted figures by a lake, the giggling girl touching the swirls and strokes that made up her curls. The red-headed boy’s eyes lit up at the sight of himself beneath the firebird, his flames lighting its feathers in brilliant gold and dancing like the candles she left for him. The old woman, who she poured kvas for, scrutinized the dark-haired girl hidden in the trees, while she trailed her hand along the herd of white deer grazing before her.

Sometimes, she would see an old friend and add them in. Other times, she would add them in before they paid her a visit. Yet, with the tiny eclipse hidden in the shadows of a palace and its golden domes, she could not bring herself to paint the silver eyed boy she remembered. Often times, she wondered that if, wherever he’d gone after she’d said goodbye, he’d remembered her as well.  



	2. Chapter 2

In the garbled mess of the children’s exclamations, Alina could only smile and hide her confusion as best she could. A bridge made of bone spanning a gorge? Stone statues crying blood and blooming with roses? Thousands of hummingbirds erupting from the ground? Alina had faced sea serpents and shadow monsters, yet she hadn’t been prepared to hear about the countless new miracles.

“Well, you sure make Ravka sound like a fairytale,” she said as she herded the group back to class.

“I heard the cook say that it’s the saints!”

“I bet it’s some new way to fight Fjerda!”

“I bet its that new starless cult or whatever!”

“Maybe there were monsters that escaped before the Fold was destroyed!”

The children had to be exaggerating. It had to be a result of the Apparat’s nasty habit of sensationalizing things. There was probably an explanation in the small science. Like a very talented fabricator creating optical illusions as art? Whatever the case, Alina was sure the talk of saints and miracles was nothing more than over-zealous preaching from the churches and monasteries. Especially with a new cult? Of course, it had to be that.

“Finish your school work, and maybe I’ll let you come hunting with the others and me. Then you could hunt and fight all the monsters in Ravka!

Turning toward the voice, Alina found Mal as he entered the hall, a small trail of dirt following him as bits of the forest floor’s debris clung to his pants and boots. With his gear already discarded and the sun still fairly high in the sky, Alina found herself raising an eyebrow at her husband’s early arrival. Usually he argued that the students needed more time.

Once, in their time underground, she noted how he’d inclined his head toward the surface as if he could hear through the stone to the life above. In the mountains and the tundra, he’d done the same, moving without a second’s hesitation. Every now and then, she noticed him incline his head just the same, only for his eyes to dart around before returning to her. In the meadow, she noticed his eyes sweeping through the tree line at the smallest sound, his senses straining to find other signs of life in the branches and beneath the bushes beyond. If he thought he heard a squeak in the house, he would inch away from her and toward the walls. The silence of the house left him bored, and the silence of the forest left him uneasy. Mal needed the time just as much as the rest of them. 

“Forget something? Or did someone break an arm falling out of a tree again?”, Alina laughed as the children rushed back to class, promising to finish their math work before their monster hunting adventures.

Giving her a quick peck, Mal steered them toward the study as he spoke, “I think a few of them decided to try kvas last night. That or someone decided to make some sort of herring surprise again. They’re letting it all out now.”

Uh,” Alina grimaced, “Shouldn’t we check on them?”

“It’s alright, I asked the servants to check in once in a while,” his voice lowering as they entered the study, “But I need to talk to you about something.”

“Oh?”

At his shift in tone, Alina made her way to the couch. Instead of joining her however, he made his way to the desk, wrenching open a drawer. As he took out an envelope, she saw the flash of a golden seal and double headed eagle. Alina shot up from her spot, swiping the letter and beginning to read before he could explain. The last she’d heard from Os Alta, the king was thanking them for their birthday wishes.

As her eyes scanned the page, she found her excitement shifting, brows furrowing at the written request. Nikolai was to go on a tour of the country, visiting towns where the most recent miracles had taken place. He and his entourage would travel all the way to the Fold, paying their respect to Sankta Alina of course, before ending their stay in Keramzin… Without him. She tore her eyes from the page, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to form words.

“Saints, what is he up to?”

Mal shrugged, “Maybe, he’s just checking on the junior grisha. He did mention that he and Zoya were going together. Got to keep a low profile for security reasons I guess. I mean, you heard about all the stuff that happened in Ketterdam a few months back.”

Of course Alina had. How couldn’t she? Rumours of a drug that could alter grisha abilities had cropped up all over Ravka, along with horrific stories of flying soldiers snatching grisha as they slept. She could hardly imagine them being true, at least not without merzost. Then again, if Nikolai just so happened to travel to the miracle sites, she imagined they were more than quaint vacation spots or a part of a pious pilgrimage. They could, for all she knew, have something to do with parem… Or merzost.

She shuddered at the idea of seeing power like that in the world again. The clicking of a thousand insects and scratch of a thousand claws rang in her ears as shadowy bodies with gnashing teeth flashed in her eyes. She felt the echo of a command reverberating through her body as she brought chapel walls crumbling down around her. She felt a familiar glow on her skin, before a stabbing pain tore the light from her fingertips and she was standing in the study once again. What had it taken to bring this sort of power back to Ravka? What would it take for her?

She shook her head and turned back to Mal, “Something’s up.”

“And? The most we can do is accept the request. I doubt there’s anything else we can help with, even if we asked.”

Alina gripped the letter tighter, its edges crinkling as she tried to keep her voice down, “So? Mal, they’re our friends and something is clearly wrong.”

“Alina,” he said slowly, holding up his hands, “I know and that’s the most we can do as their friends. We’re not soldiers anymore… And the sun summoner died years ago.”

That she had, but Alina didn’t appreciate the reminder. There were enough reminders.

“I’m not saying we need to march out the door,” she huffed, “I just think there’s something huge and Mal we can’t just-“

Walking around the desk, Mal wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her hair, “I know, but Alina, you’ve already done everything for Ravka. Just let them handle it.” 

She leaned into the embrace, her words muffled in his chest, “I don’t doubt that they can handle it, but seriously? With all the monster and cult talk I can’t help but worry.”

At the mention of the cult, she felt him stiffen. Alina pulled back slightly to see a smile plastered on Mal’s face as he tried to whisper her reassurance. He didn’t look her in the eye as she stepped back.

“What? Is it about the cult?”

Of course it was. Mal still wouldn’t look at her directly as he took her hand in his. What did Mal know about a starless cult? The last cult she’d known of was her own. To be named a “starless” cult was to clearly oppose the sun saint and stand in the dark… It was to stand with the dark.

Alina tore her hand out of Mal’s, pacing as it dawned on her, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“They’re fanatics, Alina. They can barely get followers; I doubt they’d be able to bring him back.” 

She ran out of the room, the sunlight in the hall doing nothing to stop the flashes of the dark Little Palace. A woman rushing her out under the cover of night as she warned her about what waited if she stayed. About how many faces and names he’d taken on before, and how he’d bided his time, and how he could continue to. Baghra was at her side again, shaking her head and opening her eyes to reveal the dark sockets where they’d once been. Alina turned on her heel, refusing to look at the black of her gaze.

“Power like that never dies. It merely sleeps,” she could practically hear the old woman say in her raspy voice.

As she continued down the hall, the blaze beneath the firebird morphed into the pyre, the smoke stinging her eyes as the mourners sang on. The sea whip’s scales and deer’s antlers curled around her wrist and throat, but she only felt the force of water as it was pushed back by a dam. She felt her friends’ stares linger on her hands as she flitted past. They pleaded with her as the flap of leathery wings drew closer. Yet, she had nothing to offer.

The miracles around Ravka, and a new cult to praise his power, and her? The sun summoner had died years ago. She’d been martyred on the Fold. And now what was left sank to the floor of her bedroom, waving her hands aimlessly.

It was a few hours later when Mal found her propped up against the large window, ignoring the shadows that crept in the corners behind her as she cried in the remnants of afternoon light.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I suck at managing my time between writing and school. Sorry about that lol. Finals are almost over, so I'll hopefully have the last bit of this up soon. Anyway, enjoy!

It began in the waning moonlight as darkness consumed the house, the sun still having yet to peak over the horizon. Alina rolled over in bed, repositioning herself in Mal’s arms. As she opened her eyes and sat up to move an arm that had gone numb, silver flashed in the corner of her eye. Before she could look at it fully, the silver winked out, disappearing like the stars outside.

The next evening the flash had appeared in the mirror as she got ready for bed. The night after that, she thought she’d seen it reflected off the window as she grabbed a glass of water in the kitchen. It was a trick of the light of course. She was just tired. 

Yet, she could hardly sleep.

No matter how tired she was, Alina could never sleep through the whole night. She would spend the evening talking to Marie or Harshaw, even Baghra, only to go to bed and wake up an hour later, trying to find someone to talk to again. She was always met with dead silence though. So she walked through the house, grabbed a snack, read a book until she tired herself out. She scrutinized her own paintings or sat in the music room till Mal came looking for her. But whenever her eyes began to droop, she was jolted awake by the shift of something just outside the circle of candlelight.

On the night before the royal entourage arrived, Alina fell asleep in the office. Untangling herself from her pile of blankets, she stood from the couch. Her mind was still too groggy to comprehend the time on the clock, but she didn’t miss the creak of the floorboards behind her. 

She turned around and called out, “Mal?”

She walked over to the door that she’d left ajar earlier, poking her head out into the hall, but he wasn’t there. The doors to the classrooms and dormitories were all shut, and Alina waited for another creak down the hall, but all she heard was the ticking of the clock. There were no kids sneaking around, and Oncat was no where to be found either. It was probably just the weather then. The change in temperature was just making the wood groan.

Alina made her way back to the couch, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. She was just tired. The king’s entourage was coming tomorrow and she was just too stressed for her friends. Whatever they were doing, they would be fine and she could stop being anxious.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Alina muttered to herself as she picked up her blankets.

“Of course, it is, Alina.”

Alina froze, the voice plunging her into an ice cold lake. Her heart thumped rapidly, the sound of it alone threatening to break the icy surface of the water before she drowned. She fought against the current, trying to find another way out. She didn’t have to go there, she didn’t have to look. She could-no, she should just go back to bed.

_Creak._

Alina whipped around, her hand stretched out, ready to summon. As the moon shined through the large windows, it painted the room in a faint blue glow, but where the light could not reach, shadows bled out like ink. Alina watched as they shifted, the icy surface of the lake shattering as she came back up, her eyes meeting silver ones. 

Alina felt her throat tighten as her limbs went numb and she began to tear up. She glanced at the moon and stars outside, her fingers twitching as she tried to call the light. She cried in frustration as she was met with nothing but the same void of the last 3 years. Of course, nothing came. She was delusional for thinking anything would, and what she was seeing now had to be a part of that. She didn’t have to go back to sleep, she just had to wake up from whatever _this_ was.

As feeling returned to her body, she backed away from him. Tripping over a side table, she brought a mug crashing down. The porcelain shattered and the sound ricocheted off the walls, but all she could hear was him. She couldn’t hear the man jumping out of bed in the room above her, or the feet rushing down the stairs to the office. All she could hear was his voice as he whispered her name. All she could see was him as he bent down in front of her. All she could feel was the faint touch of his hand as he cupped her face and brushed a tear away with his thumb.

A pair of arms snaked around her, and she nearly screamed, but Alina quickly realized that the warmth she felt was Mal’s chest. She could barely make out what he was saying, but she recognized the panic in his eyes. She could hear the faint noise of some of the staff standing outside the office, wondering what had happened, and she hoped that she hadn’t woken anyone else up. It would be hard enough to explain what had happened to Mal.

Alina tried to reassure him as best she could, but all she could feel was her cold hand in his, and between her hiccups, all she could manage was “Nightmare.”

How could she even begin to tell him what she’d seen? What she’d been seeing for the past few weeks? A million explanations ran through her head, but only one stuck. And when Alina turned back to the spot to confirm it, nothing was there.

**

Alina stood on the front steps with Mal the next morning as a sky blue carriage came through the gates. She didn’t know if it was the light reflecting off all the gold leaf decorating its exterior, or the lack of sleep making her eyes sensitive, but she felt a headache come on as she squinted in the sun light.

Mal shuffled next to her, his eyes shifting between the carriage and soldiers surrounding it to the kids in the distance waving to them. He hadn’t once glanced at her. Alina grabbed his hand and squeezed, but he still didn’t look at her. He hadn’t looked at her since this morning.

“It was a nightmare,” she told him again and laughed, “If you’re so worried I’m sick from stress or something, I’ll have one of the twins look at me.”

“Alright, you want to tell me what that nightmare was all about then? You look like you saw a ghost.”

Alina shook her head and smiled, “It’s fine.”

One of the younger boys called out to Mal, and as he left the kitchen, Alina caught a glimpse of one of her paintings in the hall. The Little Palace and its golden domes stared back at her, the eclipse hidden in the carvings of its walls catching her eye before the kitchen door swung shut. She returned her gaze to her mug, her finger circling the chipped rim.

“Besides,” she whispered, “It’s not like ghosts aren’t something I haven’t seen before.”

She knew Mal had a million questions he wanted to ask her, but as the carriage came to a stop before them and she stared at the double headed eagle adorning its side, the sun rising behind its wings, she could only think of her own.

**

Alina quickly remembered answers were not as easy to come by. At least, not where the king and the fate of the country were concerned.

Alina had to remind herself that Tolya, while he was still her friend, was not obligated to give her information. While he’d sworn an oath to the sun summoner years ago, she wasn’t about to use her position as a saint to make him. Telling her Nikolai’s plans were not part of his duties. Even if he wanted to, they were not within the safety of the war room’s walls. Though, she highly doubted any eavesdropping eight year olds would report anything back to Fjerda or the Shiu.

So, she waited. She waited for Nikolai and Zoya to return. She waited to see if she hallucinated again. She waited for another opportunity to talk to him for answers.

Sitting by a tree, the sunset casting long shadows in the grass he found her again. In the middle of the night, as she got up for a glass of water, he followed her down the hall. As she crept into the bathroom at the crack of dawn, she found him staring back at her in the mirror. Every time she tried to ask him a question. What are you doing here? Why did it take you so long? Every time he disappeared without a word.

It was 2 days later , when Tamar arrived without the king or the general, that Alina decided she couldn’t wait for answers any longer.

“Is there really a volcra flying around all the farms at night? What if it comes to Keramzin next?”

Alina peered into the hall where a little girl followed the twins as they prepared to return to Os Alta. Tamar laughed as she replied with a “no”, disappointment written all over the girl’s face as a teacher herded her back to class. Alina glanced down the opposite end of the hall. No one else was around, and Mal had yet to return from another hunting trip.

She ran out of the office and slid to a stop in front of them, whispering, “What’s this about volcra?”

The twins glanced at each other, the silent split second debate between them enough for Alina to tell that it was more than nothing. Alina stared back at them, silently pleading. Whatever was going on with all the new cult and monster talk had to do with Nikolai’s trip. Maybe, whatever was happening to her wasn’t too far off. Maybe, just maybe, she could help them just as much as they could help her.

“Alina,” Tamar started, “you don’t have to-“

She held up a hand. She was touched by their concern, but Alina had long since given up running. She wasn’t going to sail off to Novya Zem, she certainly wasn’t going under to the White Cathedral, and she wasn’t going to stay in her manor waiting for the dark to speak to her either. She pointed back to the office. If they weren’t going to tell her first, then she would tell them instead.

As soon as they entered, Alina shut the door and heaved out a breath, “I’m starting to see him again.”

They looked at her, mouths agape. They didn’t have to ask who she was referring to.  
“I don’t know how this is happening, and I thought that I was just hallucinating, but I swear there’s more. It’s like the connection all over again, but he only ever comes to me, and I can’t reach out. I can’t feel the other side of it.”

Tolya spoke up, a look of hope taking over the terror, “Can you summon?”

Uncurling her hands from her skirt, Alina reached out. The sun shone through the window, but no light came to dance in her palm, only dust motes. She pushed and pushed, but they all stared at her empty hand.

“Have you told Mal?”

“I will...”

“The monster’s been reappearing in Nikolai,” Tamar said after a beat of silence, “If he’s showing up to you again, then there’s more to what Nikolai thought. His power never really died.”

“What?”

Tolya nodded to his sister gravely, “And we let him and Zoya just walk into the Fold.”

Some sliver of his power was alive in Nikolai, and said monster king was no where to be found! Alina pressed the twins for more answers, and they did the same to her, Alina’s nails digging deeper and deeper into her palms as she pieced everything together. She couldn’t believe Nikolai and Zoya had gone to the Fold with some member of _his_ cult! And saints, where were they now? She felt her palms sting as her nails broke skin, but she ignored it, her mind reeling with all the possibilities of what could’ve happened.

Alina argued back and forth with the twins for the better part of an hour. She wanted to return to Os Alta with them to help, to see if she could discover anything about his power surviving. 

Tamar’s golden eyes hardened, “Alina, there’ll be dignitaries from all over the world and we already have to cover up for Nikolai’s disappearance, hiding you in the capital won’t be easy. Then what’ll we do if people start talking about the sun summoner returning from the dead?”

“And what will you do, girl? The little saint can’t do so much as summon a tiny beam! Will you be there to welcome my son home after all he’s done?” Baghra whispered from behind Alina’s shoulder.

Alina brushed her off, “Okay, I’ll admit I don’t know what I’d do exactly while I’m there, but I can’t help but feel that I need to be. Whatever’s happening, promise you won’t count me out.”

The twins nodded to her. Whatever happened next, they could all handle it together. Whatever, or whoever, it was, they would figure it out. Alina just hoped that they would have enough time, and that wherever Zoya and Nikolai were, they did too. The sun summoner returning from the dead to Os Alta would be the least of their worries.


End file.
